The following is an adapted version of an article written by former Minister for Regional Development and Public Administration and researcher at the Europe Strategy Research Institute Tibor Navracsics, originally published in Hungarian on the Five Minutes Europe blog of Ludovika.hu.
The European Parliament’s Relationship with National Parliaments
One of the most contentious aspects of the democratic deficit in the European Union has always been the relationship between the European Parliament and the national legislatures. Until 1979, this problem did not exist, as its representative body at the community level consisted of delegations from the national parliaments. The birth of the directly elected European Parliament itself raised the question of the relationship between the institutions, which has become more acute with each successive increase in the EP’s powers.
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty ended a communication gap of more than a decade, with two declarations annexed to the treaty stressing the importance of cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments. The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty called for the involvement of national parliaments in decision-making, and in 2006 the European Commission undertook to send all new proposals to national parliaments.
The Lisbon Treaty, while making the above-mentioned Commission gesture mandatory, also introduced an early warning system, whereby national parliaments could indicate if a proposal infringed the principle of subsidiarity. In addition to these, there was an increasing emphasis on institutionalized cooperation, in addition to consultations and steps during the legislative process.
Thus, the National Conference of State Legislatures has existed since 1981, as has COSAC—the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union—which has met regularly since 1989. Since 2005, there has also been the possibility of holding joint meetings in which members of the European Parliament and national parliaments can discuss specific issues.
Also included are forms of cooperation regulating the possibilities for joint work between a national parliament and that country’s members of the European Parliament. In this area, Hungarian regulation serves as a model for other countries when addressing the issue of the democratic deficit.
The legal status, rights and obligations of Hungarian Members of the European Parliament are regulated by Act LVII of 2004, which has been amended several times since then. In addition to the general provisions applicable to members of the European Parliament from any country of the European Union, the Act establishes an exceptionally broad framework for the cooperation of Hungarian MEPs with the Parliament.
‘This is an area where Hungarian regulation serves as a model for other countries’
Accordingly, Hungarian Members of the European Parliament may at any time participate with deliberative rights in the meetings of the standing committees of the Parliament and in the discussion of agenda items related to European integration in plenary sessions of the Parliament.
Members of the European Parliament may inform the standing committees of the Parliament about their activities or about the EP’s issues concerning Hungary, and members of the European Parliament may request information and data from Hungarian official bodies for the performance of their work, just like members of Parliament.
This regulation makes Hungarian MEPs the MEPs with the strongest formalized rights in the European Union. If we add to this that the National Assembly is also one of the national legislatures with traditionally strong powers in European politics, then it becomes clear why the relationship between the Hungarian legislature and the European Parliament is considered exemplary by experts.
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